SLIDESHOW: Inside the vault at Mercantile Library

John Hoover, director of the St. Louis Mercantile Library, opened the vault, so to speak, so we could have a look at some of the library’s treasures after our photo shoot of him for this week’s St. Louis Character.

Click the photo on the right to view items stored in the library's collection.

Some of the collections date back to before the Civil War. They include everything John James Audubon’s “Birds of America” series valued in the millions of dollars to archives of companies long out of business to paintings, maps and models of trains and riverboats. Also included: the newspaper archives of the Business Journal!

The library is located in the Thomas Jefferson Library Building on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It’s open Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday noon to 8 p.m.